Whoever Eats of It
by Vain Girl
Summary: Sam and Jess meet on the 10:30 Greyhound to Palo Alto. Neither of them understand what it is they're getting. Ignorance is not bliss. Preseries. SamJess and SamDean. All feedback is welcome.
1. Whoever Eats of It

Not mine, no money, enough said.

Whoever Eats of It

"No one bakes such bread as my wife, such as she baked me on St. George's Day. Many flowers and dew were kneaded into the cake with love. Whoever eats of it will be her slave." - Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling - Charles Leland

They meet on the 10:30 Greyhound to Palo Alto. Jess has a duffel bag slung over one shoulder and lap top in its case over the other one and she's staggering just a little under the weight of it. He catches her by the elbow before she can fall and she turns around and looks up. And up.

At nearly six feet, that doesn't happen enough and Jess can't help but dimple up at the boy. He smiles back, and it's like sun on the water, shining. His hair is too short, his elbows and cheekbones look like a matched set of knives, and he may be the prettiest damn thing Jess has ever seen.

"I'm Jess," she says, gesturing for him to sit beside her. "Jess Moore." He hesitates, poised on the balls of his feet, like he could sprint if there was only room on the narrow bus.

She follows his gaze, right over her shoulder and out the window. Another boy is standing there, staring back, his stance so similar he could be twin to the one next to her. A boy, in leather, pursed mouthed. Fists stuffed into his jacket pocket, ready to run.

"Come on." Jess pats the seat next to her. "Sit. I have cookies and I might be convinced to share if my seat mate has the right stuff."

The boy's eyes are still so far away, even when he sits down next to her and smiles and tells her his name is Sam. He doesn't look out the window again, not until they pull out of the station in a cloud of road dust and exhaust.

_Jess left home three days ago, with the Stanford packet clutched tightly in one hand and the rest of her life in the other. Her mother stared at her back, with eyes so sharp that Jess could feel them pricking at her like needles in a sore, even though she didn't turn around._

_"You remember there are consequences to everything you do, daughter!" She heard hissed at her departing back._

_Her father wasn't there. But then that was just typical._

They don't talk much for the first half hour. Sam stares out the window at corn fields, and Jess pretends not to watch him.

Sam ends up talking first, head swiveling around so suddenly to look at her, Jess almost jumps. "You pack kind of light, huh?" he says softly. He's not really looking at her, but he's not looking at anyone else here on the bus either.

"I sold all my stuff before I bought the bus ticket," Jess tells him, her tone bright enough to go with her pasted on smile. "It was making me itchy, anyway."

"Itchy? Your stuff?" Sam gives her a blank shrug, like the idea had never occurred to him before. As if he hasn't come packed just as light unless he's hiding more stuff under the bus somewhere.

"I'm gypsy blood," she says, and grins outright. "We pack light."

"Gypsy blood?" He grins back, like it's a reflex and presses a finger to his lip. "Cool. And you're going to Stanford."

She hasn't actually told him that, but seeing as though she still had the admission packet clutched under her shoulder, it might be obvious. Sam has figured it out, at least.

"Yeah, Sherlock Holmes. I'm trying new things," she says.

"Yeah. Yeah, me too." And there's something nameless and ragged in Sam's expression that makes Jess think he maybe understands. "New things. And I'm also going to Stanford."

Jess just stares for a moment and then brightens into laughter. "Wow, no kidding? It's like fate."

_Five days ago she stood in the cracked, peeling kitchen of the tiny apartment they're renting now. Eggs and sugar in a chipped bowl that's seen better days. Rose water and dew she scraped from the flowers that grow in the window box. _

_She beat in the flour, her hands so steady it hurt. Flour on her hands, flower petals on the cutting board and it was time to knead. She did it slow and deliberate, whispering to the dough under her hands, shaping it, telling it what she needed._

"Take me away. Make me happy. Make me free."

_After, Jess washed her hands with running water from the cold tap, because the hot water had been shut off at least a week ago after too many unpaid bills. Three times, she washed, until her fingers were numb with cold._

_Just purifying herself from the consequences. _

"Here, have a cookie," Jess says and presses one into Sam's hand. They aren't fresh any more, at five days old, but they still glitter with sugar and smell good. "Baked them myself." It's dark now and her teeth glint in the sallow streetlight.

The bus is stopped and most everyone has dashed off into the truckstop for food or to piss somewhere that doesn't stink of bus toilet, but they're both still here. Jess hasn't got much money left for anything like food anyway, and won't until her financial aid comes in. Sam hasn't said anything, but Jess guesses it might be the same for him. He's been staring out the window again, glare focused right on the gleaming yellow payphones by the truckstop door.

"I'm not hungry," Sam mutters, right before his stomach makes a loud, bubbly sound that makes Jess laugh.

"Sure, whatever. Don't insult me. Eat." She curls her fingers around his hand, closing them over the cookie.

He shrugs, like he's going to refuse, but then just goes ahead and eats it. Jess watches his face while he chews, watches the expression. It doesn't change, not really, just a tired boy on a bus, trying to smile and not have it come out fake. _Make me happy_, she thinks, but she isn't even sure what it is she wants.

Jess' mother used to tie blue strings around her wrist, to keep off the evil eye. She was convinced that the old woman down the road was the one who'd made Jess come down with the flu. That and not the cracked windows that let the wind howl through the narrow bedroom in their latest apartment.

_"You can't sit near that person, baby," her mother whispered, small dark head pressed against Jess' pale hair. "She's an ill wish, I can smell it off her."_

_"I don't believe in that," Jess muttered, pushing her mother off of her, the mother she's been taller than since the junior high. "Jesus, mom, why do you even need to talk about that superstition shit? It makes you sound stupid."_

_"Don't you speak to your mother that way!" Her mother winced and slapped her, not too hard, but hard enough to leave the red imprint of a bony palm. Jess didn't flinch, just glared. _

_"It is stupid," she muttered._

_Her mother glared back, but it was sadder than it was angry. "I will tell you stupid. Stupid is sticking your nose in school-books, and filling your head so that no man would take you unless you bespelled them. You think that's fitting for a woman of your people?"_

_"It's fitting for me." An old argument, even then, and Jess looked away, at some point over her mother's shoulder._

_"It's a tragedy, is what it is. A pretty girl like you. How will you ever be happy?" And now she sounded sad, tired, like when she was talking to Jess' father about maybe getting evicted again._

_"I am happy! Books make me happy!" Jess hissed. Not even really trying to make her understand, she already knew there was no point._

_"You think you're happy. But I know. Well, it seems there is no choice." Her mother compressed her lips. "If you need to bespell a man to get one, than so be it, the consequences on your head. I'll teach you to bake."_

_And somehow, it had seemed easier not to argue._

When they pull into Palo Alto, Sam is telling a story about this one school he went to out in Nebraska somewhere and what a pain it was to get them to let him sit the AP English exam. Jess just nods and rolls her eyes at the right moments and shares a story of her own about sneaking an SAT prep course when no one had paid the tuition for her.

While they talk he licks cookie crumbs off his fingers, unselfconscious as a child. Somewhere along the way, he'd stopped looking out the window, like he expects the boy they'd left in the Colorado dust to still be there looking back. Jess tries not to worry too much about where and when.

"I think I'm going to like it here," Jess says softly as the bus screeches to a halt and Sam jumps up to grab her stuff for her.

"Yeah," he whispers and looks at her like she's not some stranger he met on a bus. Looks at her like maybe she's something… someone else.

And Jess remembers her mother hissing about consequences, but the memory is fleeting when Sam reaches down to take her hand.


	2. Not Against Their Will 1 of 4

Notes: Many thanks to my more than generous wifey **kkscatnip**, who helped me with this monster even though it's not her kind of thing at all.

All errors of myth, grammar or structure are mine.

Summary: Sam meets Jess on a bus to Palo Alto. Neither of them understand what it is they're getting. Ignorance is not bliss.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

\

Stanford campus police find the first bodies. Two of them, sacked out on a bench, like someone recovering from a late night study session or a party. They look like they just fell asleep. That's all. Just fell asleep.

There's a major scare about bad drugs that makes the local news and doesn't get retracted even when the autopsies show both kids' systems were completely clean.

It's still only August. Classes start in a week.

\

Sam and Jess have sex for the first time within twenty-four hours of meeting on a greyhound and they both already know that's it's going to be pretty much them, together. It happens less than ten minutes after they decipher the damn maps handed out by someone claiming to be involved in freshman orientation and finally find her dorm room.

They strip right there, in a puddle of sunlight on her bare dorm mattress, their duffel bags of worldly goods scattered on the floor around them. Like they've been touch starved for years. Years.

Everything is sticky, sticky, under the thick scent of salt water and sweat. There's an early September heat wave and the dorms are not and never have been air-conditioned.

Sam's fingers are long and heavy and they brush through the sweaty strands of Jess' hair like she's eggshells and cotton candy. The rest of him is fast and desperate, like she's sweet water after too much salt. She doesn't tell him she wasn't a virgin before today, but it was a close thing. Still, she's pretty sure he's figured it out, like she can more or less tell he's not even close to virginal himself.

After, he falls asleep, and she draws wishes out in runes on the smooth, tanned skin of his back, fluid spells in sweat and come. She is so full and sore and swollen she wants to burst with it.

When she sleeps she dreams of yellow, wrinkled skin and a wild-haired woman stinking of unwashed laundry with yellow tinged eyes. In her sleep Jess can hear her mother's voice, warning her about something, but she can't make out the words over the yellow woman's chanting.

_"A crooked house," the old woman says. Her voice is loud and hoarse, easy to hear over the howling of the wind. "There was a crooked man living in a crooked little house with his crooked cat and his crooked mouse. " _

And so there is. A crooked house on three legs, with a haphazard, filthy yard. And in the yard are twelve stakes driven solidly into the ground. Ten are bare, a metal point gleaming in the moonlight. Two have fresh human heads affixed on them with staring, burning eyes.

The women, she reaches for Jess with a single, yellow claw and Jess lets it touch her face. Jess should be afraid, should be frozen with it, but there's warmth pooled at her back where Sam is pressed close and she is tall and strong and fears nothing at all.

"Who are you?" Jess asks, but she thinks she knows.

The old woman laughs, and there's nothing kind or humorous in it. "Better to ask, who are you, Jessica Moore. Are you here of your free will or have you been sent?"

"Of my free choice," Jess answers without even thinking about it.

"A stupid choice. You're just the mouse, girl. And mice had better watch out for men." And for just a moment the old woman looks almost sad. Then she smiles and Jess knows without being told that she could die here.

So Jess watches, but all she can see are the old woman's yellow eyes. There's fire on her skin, and she's not sure if it's coming from those eyes on their poles, staring at her so hard, or from the arms wrapped around her, keeping her close.

She knows what it means to burn alive. She screams. It's only the harsh tug of Sam's arm, like steel bands, that pulls her back and away.

In the morning Jess wakes up before Sam, feeling smelly and used and kind of amazing despite the dreams. Sam's breath is soft in her ear and he's curled around her, a cage of skin and muscle. Jess has never slept with anyone before, not just to sleep. She's not sure she likes it, but Sam is hers and she can't complain.

She yawns and stretches against him. The very moment she moves he opens his eyes and pushed himself up, coming awake so quickly it makes Jess' head spin. All the way awake, enough to bite her in exactly the right spot above her nipple.

"Morning person," she mutters, like it's a curse and Sam looks up and kind of grins at her. His teeth are white and his eyes crinkle. Beautiful. Jess' breath catches and she wonders how she actually ended up here, so far from home, tucked up against this boy she hardly knows. She wonders how much she's going to have to pay for this.

"Hope that's not a deal breaker," Sam says, all faux puppy dog eyes and thick, girly lashes.

Jess pretends to consider it, pursing her lips. As if she could break the deal now, even if she wanted to. He ate from her hand. He's the one. She deliberately does not wonder if he would break it if he could.

"Don't insult me," she finally says, and she grins back at him. "Just bring me coffee. Lots of coffee."

"Okay." Sam all but jumps to his feet, shoulders straight, posture perfect, like he's going to salute her. Instead he kisses her, soft edged and sleepy tasting. "I'll be back." And he goes once he pulls his pants off the floor.

He's back with a cup and a package he picked up from somewhere under his arm before Jess has had time to do much but rub the sleep out of her eyes and think about looking for her toothbrush. He hands both to her. The package has her name on it in her mother's scratchy writing.

Jess hasn't done anything weird, like call her mother to let her know she's arrived, but apparently she didn't need to. It's a small box, and inside is a carved wooden hand, with an eye and a sun painted in broad, bright strokes. Jess rolls her eyes, but she hangs it on the wall anyway.

Sam stares when he sees it, just standing there and looking from the symbol to Jess and back again, a very slight frown on his face. Like a million questions. Like he's trying not to be scared. He doesn't say anything, though, so Jess finally does.

"I told you I was a gypsy, right?" she asks, curling bare toes under her knees. His eyes are nearly as blue looking as the eye on the hand in the clear morning light.

"Yeah," he says softly.

"Well, that thing, it's crazy superstitious gypsy shit, right?" Like baking. Like bespelling your lover. No one believes in it. "To keep away the evil eye if you can believe that. Lame, but my mom sent it and… Well, she's my mom." Jess gives a broad, 'what can you do?' sort of shrug. She feels a little sick to her stomach as soon as the words are out of her mouth.

But Sam laughs, expression lightning like it's a magic trick and that helps ease the ache. She wants to see Sam laugh. She wants to see it a lot. "Really? Don't worry, I bet your mom has nothing on my dad."

"It doesn't matter anyway," Jess murmurs, stretching her arms over her head in a wide arc. "Everyone knows the evil eye can only hurt you if you believe in it."

"Really?" Sam repeats and he's staring again.

"Sure. And there's no such thing." Steady. Stupid superstitions shoved aside with the firm sweep of words.

"No such thing." Sam nods. "Yeah. Of course there isn't."

"You'll believe me, right?" Jess whispers, turning back to the wall. Her voice is soft, not intended to be heard by anyone, especially not him.

"I will," Sam replies anyway. Loud and steady.

And Jess thinks it will be okay. Just as long as she doesn't talk too much about dreams, gypsies and baking.

\

Sam never remembers his dreams. Never. Except the ones with claws and blood and someone screaming in the dark, but that's okay too, because when he wakes up Dean is there to throw a pillow at his head and tell him to quit whining. Or tell him that it's okay. Whichever.

These days Sam just doesn't have dreams at all, which is fine, since he has memories instead. Of course they're all about Dean. The one he remembers clearest is the last one.

_"So, watch your back, dude," Dean says, and he smiles and smacks Sam on the back, hard enough to make him flinch. Forcing the knife to dig into the bandage that covers the tattoo Sam got just yesterday, and ow. Ow. But that's not Dean's fault, Sam hasn't told him about the tattoo. _

He doesn't have the words to just say, 'oh by the way, I got your initials tattooed on my ass'. And he doesn't even know why he did it anyway. He just did.

The bus is already pulling into the station, driving up a cloud of road dust behind it like something out of a movie and Sam watches it just like that. A movie. Watches anything that is not Dean's face, because he knows Dean is still smiling.

Sam wouldn't, will not, smile back, even if he could, so he just clutches his duffel with whitened knuckles. "Yeah. Yeah, you know I can take care of myself, Dean."

"Right. Just don't come whining to me when you crash and burn, you little geek," Dean mutters, the smile in his tone not cracking a bit.

Sam rolls his eyes and his fingers tighten even further, digging into the fleshy folds of his palm. "Whatever. Dad already told me not to bother calling." He stares at the bus, reading the black and white letters announcing San Francisco. His ticket is one way. He hears the sound that Dean makes, muted and brutal.

"That- I don't mean-" Dean is spluttering but Sam isn't looking at him anymore. "You can always-"

"I can take care of myself," Sam repeats, mouth twisted and set. He waits for Dean to smack him on the back of the head and tell him his face will stick that way if he keeps that expression, but Dean doesn't. The silence spreads and widens like oil spilling over clear water. "Always."

"Okay," Dean says, finally, just as Sam shoulders his bag and starts to walk off. "Okay."

Sam keeps walking, faster, hearing Dean's boots pound on the cement as his brother walks beside him. "Wait. Wait. Sammy-"

"Goodbye, Dean. You know where I'll be." And Sam dashes onto the bus after pressing his ticket into the driver's hands, and determinedly does not look out the window to where Dean is lingering, watching him until the bus pulls out of the lot and away. Maybe longer than that, but Sam will never know.

Sam doesn't know how he did it, where the strength to not turn around came from. Dean's gone and Sam can't remember how he used to breathe anymore.

_He was afraid to leave, of course he was afraid, but one thing Dad and Dean had taught him was how to deal with fear._

\

Sam doesn't find his own room until about half way through the second day at Stanford. He figures it's only fair to finally leave and let Jess' roommate settle in and all of that.

He thinks, maybe he should have started this school thing differently. In his plans it was just him, Sam Winchester alone in the world, but not actually, with a gun metal gray duffel bag and a knife sheathed against the small of his back pressed right up against a still healing tattoo that itches like a motherfucker. Just him figuring out what he's doing, who and what he is.

Sam should have been alone here because Sam has never been alone before, always had the warm presence of brother at his back. He would be alone now, but for a girl on a bus with pretty eyes and a package of cookies. He never expected to feel safe so soon. His rational mind actually knows better.

He's not sure how to feel about it. She has protection symbols on her wall and Sam finds he can't really ask about them. Instead he wonders hard about what Dean would say, what Dean would suggest is really happening, and tries to pretend he doesn't know the answer.

The feeling wavers when he pushes open a dorm room and the door opens to the sounds of Black Sabbath slam into him, pounded out of a stereo system sweet enough to make Dean weep, if he were here. And Dean is not here. Dean is not here to weep.

Sam has no idea what kind of an expression thinking that about Dean puts on his face, or has never been so blatantly surprised at the reaction he gets because of it.

"Hey," Sam says as he steps into the tiny room, cheerful and friendly as he knows how. He peers through a maze of half unpacked boxes to see through to the short, nerdy looking kid in huge wire rimmed glasses, singing along at the top of his lungs about Iron Man. "You, uh. You like Sabbath?"

The kid just stares. Gives Sam this open-mouthed look as his eyes go up and up and up some more until they reach the top and travel back down. Makes a little squeaking sound, before turning the music down, as though Sam has asked him to do it. Or ordered him to.

"Uh, hi?" he says and ducks his chin.

Sam tries to make whatever is making his new roommate look like he wants to shed his skin to escape ease off, but it's Iron Man. "Hey. So. I'm Sam. Sam Winchester. You're my new roommate, right?"

"Uh. Yeah." The kid nods a little too quickly. He doesn't give his name. "I, uh. Yeah. I'm gonna go. But I'll be back." And then he turns and scuttles out the door. Sam doesn't say anything, but he takes the Sabbath album out of the CD player and breaks it in half, before tossing it in the trash.

The roommate does come back. Sam wakes up after a restless night of dreams he can't remember to find the kid curled up tightly in on himself in the bed across the room. Sam is already eighteen and he's seen enough bodies to recognize that this is one before he's even fully awake. The posture, the stillness, the not actually breathing.

He stumbles to his feet, rubbing a palm over his face and walking closer. It smells weird, and not decaying dead guy weird either, but Sam can't place it. Grain, maybe? Ripe grain.

Then Sam comes all the way awake and remembers that dead roommates and what might have killed them are not his problem any more, so he calls the campus police. He sits by the body, curled up on a chair, Indian style, and stares at the shards of the Sabbath CD in the trash. He wonders why the kid was so damned scared by what he saw in Sam's face last night. Sam has never thought of himself as frightening before, and his arm wrap around himself, rocking a little when he does think about it.

When the police come they're cool voiced and kind and Sam looks them all directly in the eye and tells them every single thing he knows about it. It's the first time he remembers talking to a cop without lying, not once.


	3. Not Against Their Will 2 of 4

_On the second night, Jess sleeps alone. Her roommate is a big girl, with breath that is loud, gurgling, like every gasp takes substantially effort. _

_Jess feels it in her chest, like she's the one who's laboring for air, and dreams of a weight on her lungs, hot and hard, like a big dog or a bigger man. _

_The yellow eyed woman is heavy and anvil like, and the weight of her stare is even heavier. She says, "Mama's little idiot, you've done it now. Could ye? Could you, without you could, could ye?" _

_And Jess pushes her hard, but her hands catch on air and she's trapped. "I can," she wheezes. "I can, I will, I can." _

_Up ahead she can see the plain of pikes and a fresh head is decorating one of them. Nine are empty. It should smell of rot, of death, but the only scent on the air is that of ripe, fresh grain, like it's just been threshed. _

_"If you fail," the woman promises her, "You'll be there too." She leans forward and licks a tear from Jess' cheek. "That will be a kinder fate than if you succeed." _

_Jess reaches deep into her pocket and her fingers close on a charm of blue string and silver eyes. A bracelet, one she'd left at home on the kitchen table, at her last home before she'd come to Stanford. She does not question that she has it here, just takes it and throws as hard as a few years on the volleyball team have taught her. _

_The yellow eyed woman hisses, but Jess is already gone._

\\

The second time Sam and Jess have sex is after the hoopla with Sam's dead roommate dies down. Sam can't talk about it and Jess can't ask, but when they're finally kissing it doesn't seem to matter.

They're in Jess' room again, door locked and chair pushed under it, and fuck her roommate if the bitch wants to come in. But...

Sam goes slow, like she's glass and linen and Jess is red, cheek pressed to the pillow, not looking him in the eyes, not like this, when he's between her legs. Tongue and fingers, and she moans, and flushes. Twitches like a dying thing.

"It's okay," he whispers, soothing hands on her thighs, and all she can think is that she forgot to shave them for a few days and there's probably stubble. She shakes and closes her eyes. Whimpers at the flick of tongue on oversensitive flesh.

"Jess," he says, like it means something. Everything. If she looks him in the eyes she'll see everything. Sam's voice is slow and rueful and he says, "Jess."

His hands are on her cheek now, thighs sliding over her thighs. "Fuck," she whispers. "Oh fuck." She lets him make her look him in the eyes and sees that he'd red too, flushed to the roots, pinpoint pupils and eyes more brown than blue.

"It's embarrassing like this, isn't it?" he admits when she can't. And the words aren't quite right, but enough. "Doing it slow?"

Jess says, "Yeah. I. Yeah." Her nails dig into his back, but not too far and any marks they leave will fade. "I never. Like this."

"It's okay," he mumbles, pressing his cheek to her cheek. Gentle. "It's okay. I have. We- we'll figure it out."

Jess lets her legs fall all the way open, rubs her heels down his calves and doesn't say, 'who? who?' like some kind of screech owl. She says, "Sam. Sammy."

And he says, "I miss you. I miss you so damned much."

Jess doesn't remind him that she's right there and he doesn't need to miss her. She knows she took him from somewhere else. Knows it when he falls asleep with his head pillowed on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she whispers into the soft hairs on the back of his neck. He says nothing, and Jess wonders if he's really asleep or just pretending. Wonders what he dreams.

She's too twitchy to sleep herself so she gets up and she walks to the window. Paces, really, scuffing her bare feet against the cold floor as if she's trying to wake Sam but he doesn't even twitch. She glares at the lump of him under her covers and can almost feel the shivery sensation of his big hands on her spine, so gentle she aches. Makes her wonder what he would say if she hit instead of petting, screamed instead of soothed.

Sam ate from her hands. Maybe he wouldn't be able to get angry even then.

Jess looks away, out the window. She presses her hands down on the windowsill and blinks when she feels something gritty on her palms.

Salt. A line of it, thick and white in the moonlight, now broken by palm prints where her hands rested. Jess turns around again, but Sam is still asleep, huddled under her blanket and clutching a pillow against his chest like he was clutching someone else.

Jess sits up for another hour, whispering protection into the glass and wood and plaster of her room, begging for a dreamless sleep. She knows the spell has failed when the dream overtakes her just as she closes her eyes.

\\

_On the third night, Jess starts calling the woman in her dreams Baba Yaga. As if the name is enough, she can see the hut behind her more clearly, crooked and wobbling on chicken's legs. Naming her is the right thing to do, Jess is sure of it, even if those burning eyed heads on the pikes seem to follow her even more closely with their eyes._

The Baba Yaga ignores them and breathes with a slow tea kettle sound, reaching out for Jess with her yellow, wrinkled hands. "You think your kitchen magic can protect you from me twice, little gypsy?"

And Jess says nothing, but somehow, from somewhere, she's clutching a knife in her hand, moon sliver shaped. Like the one she found under Sam's pillow when he wasn't watching her.

She holds it, clutching and panting for breath, waiting. Just crouches down, trying to think, to remember this story, the Baba Yaga, because that's all she can do. 

"I have a blessing," she whispers. "You can't touch me, I have a blessing."

"Your mother's blessing?" Baba Yaga's fingers graze over Jess' hair. "You used that last night, Jessica."

"No. Not my mother's." Jess sees Sam's smile, blinding, all teeth and happiness. Her Sam now.

"A man of words and not of deeds," Baba Yaga says, and her voice is singsong. Younger and stronger than her face. "That boy cannot even bless himself."

And Jess remembers salt on the windowsill and shakes her head. "He can. He can."

_"Still, you used his blessing on the first night." And Jess remembers the hot, heavy arms around her and nods._

_"He's still mine," she says, head high. Without waiting for a response, she lunges forward, knife aimed for the fleshy parts of the belly. The Baba Yaga cackles and ducks._

_Jess jumps back, but not fast enough and there's a clawed yellow hand holding her own knife to her heart. Baba Yaga says, "A penknife in your heart, girl, if you claim what you can't defend. If I don't take him from you someone else will."_

_Jess kicks back, heels to instep, but the Baba Yaga is stronger, and the harder she fights, the more caught she is. Her knife draws a red line across her breast._

_"And when your heart begins to bleed- you're dead, and dead, and dead indeed," Baba Yaga whispers. And Jess' every movement seems to push the knife deeper._

_"Let her go," a voice, familiar, but harder than Jess had ever heard it. Stronger. "You let her go."_

_Jess gasps and stumbles forward, crumbling into a pile of loose limbs at Sam's feet._

_"Fool of a boy," Baba Yaga says and laughs her horrible laugh. "This girl has bound you so hard you don't even see your chains."_

_"Yeah, pull the other one," Sam mutters, and bends down to pick Jess up. He's big. Easy to forget how big until she's here, swung up into his arms like she's a little girl. Jess wants to tell him that Baba Yaga is lying, but that's just not true. Wants to tell him other things, but there's a line of blood choking back her words._

_"You think she'd protect you?" Baba Yaga asks. Light insinuating voice and Jess hides her head in Sam's shoulder, smearing her blood in the thin flannel of his shirt. "She's bound you away from the one who protects you."_

_"Who says I need protecting?" Sam says, and he turns away, turns his back, like he can, like there's not even a threat. Jess is gasping blood, whimpering, but his hands soothe her down._

_The last thing she hears is Baba Yaga's thin, horrible voice. "I can't say which of you is more cursed." _

\\

About a week after they bury the first roommate, Sam gets Zach. Zach never explains why he's changing rooms and Sam doesn't ask. It's not just anyone who's willing to room where some kid just died, but Zach acts like he's never heard about that, or he did hear and just didn't care.

Zach doesn't act scared of Sam, which is a key fact. The second fact is that Zach only listens to techno, but he listens to a lot of it. Spins out whole genres of music that Sam can imagine Dean dismissing as nerd noises.

Third fact, which would also piss off Dean, is that he reads Nietzsche out loud in a big booming voice, and then laughs about it constantly, as if he's telling the punch line to the best joke ever. Fourth, and possibly most important, is that Zach also shares his beer and pot and seems to have tapped into a never-ending supply of both. Given the facts in evidence, Sam is really not going to complain.

So, Sam likes Zach. Likes Jess too, as if liking Jess were relevant, since she's just there, like an axiom. Like Dean used to be. But Sam likes her anyway. And classes. Sam likes classes, likes being able to lean forward and raise his hand and say something without knowing the whole class is sniggering behind their hands and mentally calling him a teacher's pet.

And then there's the girls- women.

Women in black T-shirts that cling to their breasts who catch up with him as he's packing up his notes after lecture and say things like "That was really insightful, what you said. Would you like to come over to my room and maybe talk about Christopher Marlowe?"

It takes him about twice to get that this is code for 'let's fuck'. Sam digs it, almost like he digs Marlowe, and if Dean had been with him he thinks he would have had fun with it, sliding them out of their jeans and pushing their panties aside without taking them off until all their words went somewhere else. But he has Jess, so he doesn't.

It takes him a little to realize the boys are doing it too, in a half angry, half-daring sort of way. And that would not be okay, except Dean isn't here. Still. Dean isn't here, but the tattoo on Sam's back with Dean's initials is still itchy and sore and he pretends to be oblivious.

Instead he pulls Jess onto his lap and tells her about those skanky chicks to make her laugh and smack him on the back of the head in a way that he tries not to let remind him of anyone else.

It's always just so easy with Jess. She makes it easy. Easy to be Sam and Jess and not SamnDean. And not just plain Sam.

He can picture Jess' face if he explains it to her. Somehow, it comes out like one of those 50's hygiene films they watch when they're smoking up. Jess in a poodle skirt, and him with his hair slicked back. A tiled floor, black and white linoleum. Like the lunchroom of a cracked old high school, but in black and white.

In this fantasy, Jess leans over him, low enough that he can see right down her little sweater-vest thing. "You act like no one ever told you it wasn't okay to fuck your brother," she breathes into his ear. Throaty as a black and white movie.

He stares down her sweater, through a filmy scarf, wrapped tight around her neck. He doesn't blush. "Yeah. Well. Yes. No one ever said that. Explicitly."

Jess laughs, light and breezy, and lifts his chin up with the palm of her hand. Sam can't flinch away. "Explicitly?" For some reason, the face he's looking into is Jess', but the voice is suddenly Dean's. Low and amused as hell at his expense. "Dude, this isn't the kind of thing you have to be told, Sam. This is something you just know. Some things are wrong."

And then Sam leans forward and kisses Jess- or possibly its Dean at that point. Kisses harder than he ever kissed Jess, hard enough to draw blood. And sometimes he says a lot to her after the kiss breaks, practically gives a speech.

The speech goes something like this, except it's said between kisses and stripping her and licking the honey between her legs. This is just a fantasy, so he can still actually make speeches then.

Sam says something like, that he knows that he's her first real boyfriend, if not her first fuck. And then he explains that, she, Jess is also his first girlfriend, if certainly not his first fuck. He explains this between soft bites of the sensitive skin around her nipples.

He tells Jess, or possibly, given how flat and brown those nipples are, how there's chest hair and no breasts, possibly he's explaining this to Dean, because this is his fantasy and he can- Sam says that he doesn't actually remember his first time. Oh, he remembers his first time with a girl, with Missy Somers in the ninth grade, swinging on her back porch and the sharp scent of lemonade, but not his real first time.

Sam has never admitted this out loud, but in his fantasy, he slides his dick into Jess and tells her in measured, distant tones, that he can't remember exactly how it started. That there has never been a sharp, delineated first time in his head, when he touched Dean, when Dean touched him back, broad palm and slim fingers on his spine, and it stopped being exactly innocent. When they were little they shared a bed, and when they were older it just seemed- Dean was always there, and no one else ever was.

And sure, Sam says, as he thrusts into that warm, perfect ass in front of him, which certainly belongs to someone he likes, sure, intellectually Sam knows what happened was all kinds of fucked up. He's read enough books and journals about the Westermark effect and whatever else, hell he's talked to enough people, to know that. He's not ignorant. It's just that he doesn't… he doesn't feel it.

Except sometimes he's afraid, and, oh, yeah, he ran away from home and everything and everyone he ever knew. Which isn't even relevant, but is an important fact to get out there.

And then because his head is apparently is even more fucked up than even all of this would indicate, then Sam imagines things like Dean and Jess kissing, and ends up palming his cock as hard as he can with his face pressed into the wall. He's always hoping like hell Zach is too stoned to notice, but either way, Zach is too tactful to say a word.

Sam pictures this scenario in his head while he's jerking off so often that he practically gets hard just thinking about it, and that's as close as he wants to get to actually doing it.

\\

When things unravel, there have been ten deaths on campus already. Sam has resolutely not investigated any of them, except for the part where he kept trying to call or email Dean and failed to do it, over and over and over again. But, when things really, actually start, it starts like this-

Zach is laying on his stomach, taking long, drawn out gulps from a joint that Sam doesn't bother asking about the origin of, especially not one Zach passed to him with a casual, "Here you go, buddy."

This is one of Sam's favorite things about school, actually. Right after the actual school part, and then Jess and the easy, playful sex. Zach's apparently bottomless stash and the equally addictive appeal of endless access to the main library, and the special collection once he got the right people's attention acted as twin relaxants.

"Thanks, man," Sam says and takes a deep, long breath, holding in the smoking and letting out the memory of the first time he'd done this. 

_Sitting half in and half out of Dean's lap and almost choking on smoke because he didn't know how to breathe right, not at first, not instinctively like he was sure Dean could his first time. Until Dean had shown him how, warm mouth on his, all hissing half-growled words, "Come on, don't waste it, dude," and then blowing the smoke directly into Sam's mouth._

He shivers, eyes closed against the sense memory, as if that will keep it out, and almost doesn't hear Zach talking.

And that's when things unravel, because what Zach is talking about is dreams. And witches.

"Yellow eyes, man," Zach whispers. "I think it was a bad batch of weed. Pulling all this subconscious shit out, and fuck. Fuck, I think my subconscious has been watching too many horror movies."

"Yellow eyes?" Sam repeats, and feels kind of stupid, because of course it's bad weed and his brain does not need to start pulling up a list of yellow eyed dream monsters.

"Yeah. Like this creepy fuck old lady with yellow eyes and clawed fingernails. How about you, you having dreams?" 

Sam rubs the back of his neck with his palm and gives a half shrug. He's kind of mentally clutching at his detachment, and it helps to express if physically. "I never remember my dreams, so who knows?"

Zach doesn't seem to hear him, just takes another long, slow hit and shakes his head. "And the worst part was the heads, you know? Like, sticking out of these pikes, staring at me and shit."

Sam goes suddenly, abruptly still and his mouth is dry. So dry. Because this- he knows this is nothing good. "Heads on pikes?" he repeats numbly.

"Yeah, freak me out, right? And I swear to fuck that one of the heads was that dead kid's, you know the one you got as a roommate first week?" Zach looks at Sam in this half hopeful way, and Sam knows that's his cue to laugh it off, call it ridiculous. He opens his mouth and just fails to do that.

"Tell me some more about this lady, what did she say?" Sam kind of leans forward, feeling his pulse speed up, just a little. First rush of adrenaline, because this has to be something.

"Heh. You interpret dreams now?"

"Yeah, just call me Freud. I'm serious, what did she say?"

"Okay, Freud, whatever." Zach laughs, and Sam glares at him until he stops. Stares at Sam and actually looks a little bit nervous. "Okay, okay, jeez, don't hit me, man. Like, nothing. She asked me if I wanted to be there. Willingly or whatever. And I said no." Zach bites his lip. Quivers. "I said no. Jesus. Let's talk about something else now, okay?"

Sam lets him change the subject.


	4. Not Against Their Will 3 of 4

Jess knows something is wrong after the third dream, knows it beyond any doubt, just like she knows she has to do something. Magic comes in threes. Twice is coincidence and three times is enemy action. This tells her nothing, not one damn thing, about what she is supposed to do next.

What she does is make friends with her Calc II TA, a broad, blonde woman named Ingrid, who tells anyone who will listen about how much nicer life was in Germany. The woman has what Jess, stuck in the dorms, doesn't. Access to a damned kitchen. And a willingness to have her new student over to bake cookies.

Jess plays bubbly and interested, and it really isn't hard. She likes the math, likes the way it flows over graphs and squares. Likes to hear Ingrid talk while they knead dough, even if Jess is only half-listening while the rest of her mind is elsewhere.

Jess can hear her mother's voice, feel the wrap of rolling pin on knuckles. This is easy to do, reading the patterns of dough and flour on the cutting board. Easier than tarot cards, especially since anyone Jess could get to read her cards who was worth a damn would probably be on the phone to Jess' mother with the news before Jess had a chance to think things through.

So dough it was, and Jess manages not to shake, to barely even stiffen when she sees the patterns there. It can't be right, but it's so clear. "Fire," she whispers, too low to be heard.

Jess almost jumps when she hears Ingrid talking to her. "Jessica? Is something wrong?" Ingrid asks, sounding surprised and almost gentle.

Jess forces a smile and a nod. "Yes, sorry. I think I just spaced for a second there."

"Perhaps your blood sugar is low, is this possible?" Ingrid says and steps forward, a maternal gesture, like she's going to feel Jess' forehead for fever. Jess gets back just enough to make it not obvious she's ducking it, still smiling.

"Maybe. Cookies would be kind of perfect for that, right?"

So they eat cookies and talk about math and Germany's superior public transportation system and titration and Germany's superior educational system. After, Jess wraps some left over cookies in a bag and drops them off for Sam.

Behind her eyelids all she sees is fire.

\

The third time they have sex, Jess comes laughing, straddling Sam's lap. Her hair is plastered to his shoulders and her forehead. Her neck is bare and stretched out. Exposed. Fearless.

"We should go sky diving," she whispers.

"Okay," he murmurs back. "You're nuts. But okay." He eats the cookies she brought and rolls over onto his back, letting her rest on his arm. She feels heavy and warm and utterly relaxed.

"Cool," she says, and licks his cheek like he's a salt lick, and he laughs, only partly because it tickles.

It's still dark when he heads back to his room, and there's a fog that-

_And there's a fog that probably rolled right off the ocean hanging over campus that makes it even darker. It smells thick and briny and Sam breathes it down._

He stopped carrying his knife around campus about a week ago, which is why his boot holster is empty of it when he grabs for it before the spectral horse almost rides him down. Right there on the quad, black as night, thick as fog. A black rider hard on its back and then it disappears.

"Shit," Sam whispers and tries to remember what he knows about disappearing horsemen. Apocalypses usually have more portents and the damned thing had a head and shit. Just. Shit.

He starts walking again just before he sees the next one. Red. Bright and angry red, like the sun on the horizon. And that's just. "Okay. Not funny."

The third horse passes him right on the steps of his dorm, fumbling for the key card. White and white. The pikes and the yellow eyed woman and he knows what this is, just not how to stop it.

The fog burns away and lets the daylight pour through. Sam feels it on his skin, searing hot. He drops the key back into his pocket and runs, bare handed, bare headed, weaponless.

Up ahead he can see something yellow and flickering, like a field of grain on the plains. The horseman's hooves pound into it, and Sam should be so outdistanced, but he's not, he's just running and he knows he's going to catch the fucker.

"Give it back," he howls. "Give me my brother back." And never mind that he left his brother. Never mind that the rider, whatever else he's done, is not what's keeping Dean from Sam.

_Sam leaps, and he's there, on the bastard's back, knocking them both off the horse and onto the bare ground. It should hurt, but nothing can hurt worse than Sam already does._

_Sam pounds his fist into the rider's blank white face in a roundhouse. "Give it back! You give him back!" He doesn't stop punching until the pulp of the rider's face melts away and he's hitting Jess. Hitting Jess. Or maybe it's Dean._

_Sam jumps back, gasping, bloody hand over his mouth. He looks up and there's a woman floating above him and she had wild yellow eyes._

_"Hail, sweet prince. Are you here by your own will or are you ensorcelled?" Sam knows, he just knows, if he touches her he'll die, so he crawls back, a horrible kind of crab walk. He doesn't know, he doesn't know how he manages to wake up again, but he does._

_  
_\

Sam tries the same thing he's been trying almost since he got to Stanford, but his fingers still don't want to hit the buttons of Dean's number. Sam tells himself that of course Dean's an asshole so he probably has his cell off right now. If he calls it'll go right on to voicemail and Sam doesn't leave messages. Sam tells himself that and stops trying to call.

Anyway. Dean knows where Sam is if Dean wants to talk to him so- yeah. There's that.

Instead, Sam draws protection in salt and water everywhere, as if they'd been any use up to now, and tries not to worry too much that Zach has started writing on the walls on his side too. And it's not math or logic proofs, or whatever else Zach normally gets into when he's stoned. It's the kind of writing that would have made Sam howl for his dad, if he wasn't too sure his dad would answer.

But, right here and now Zach's not here in the room to be worried about, so Sam hurries off to see Jess. He wants to ignore this, but he needs to be sure first. In his head Dean's sarcastic dream voice whispers at him, biting his earlobe.  
_  
"You gonna let your new best buddies make some time with the supernatural, eh, normal boy? Real moral." _

Sam has managed to actually ignore the flesh and blood Dean, so he figures he's golden against the one he made up in his head, but that apparently is too easy.

_"Running to your girlfriend. Never figured you were the type that liked to be brought to heel, Sammy. I'd have done it myself if I knew." _

And Dean's voice saying that makes Sam quiver, even walking, even walking to see _Jess_. The raw image of Dean, bringing him to heel. Sam wants to find her, wants to fuck her through the mattress, he's that hard, but when he slips into her room, she's asleep, curled up tightly, mouth hanging open a little, like she has a cold.

Jess whimpers in her sleep, and Sam reaches out to stroke her hair, before he pulls up the chair from her computer and settles in to watch her. His hands are shaking so hard but he doesn't touch her again.

\  
Jess dreams of separating kernels of grain and seed. The yellow-eyed Baba Yaga will not speak to her, will not answer her, until they are separate, but it's an impossible task. Her fingers are sore and shaking. Too cramped to be of much use even when she wakes up.

Sam is beside her then, even though he wasn't there when she fell asleep. He's not in the bed, but curled up on the chair next to it, his hands clenched in to fists by his side, like he has something to tell her. Jess kisses his forehead, but he whimpers and doesn't wake, so she covers him up with a blanket and goes to class.

Jess is taking five classes. Organic Chem I, Calc II, Intro Analysis, Zoology and Folklore. Folklore is the only one she's even close to failing, and the irony is almost deadly, except she forgot to laugh. The professor actually wears coke bottle glasses, has a tattoo of a phrase from psalms on his arm. In Hebrew. He talks loudly about cultural analysis and post-modern something in transitional cultures.

Jess thinks about dropping the class as loudly as possible, especially in front of Sam who seems to have deluded himself into liking that shit.

She's actually got the paperwork from the registrar in her room to do it, but she's in class anyway, because Sam is asleep in a chair by her bed. And then the professor hands out the next story on their reading list in thick, photocopied packets and it's Koshchei the Deathless. One of the Baba Yaga stories. Jess doesn't even consider that any of this might be a coincidence.

She sneaks out of class half way through, the packet clutched in hands that won't stop shaking, and tries to decide if it makes the most sense to find a library or a kitchen or just run for help like a nightmare ridden kid. She flips a coin to pick between the first two options and is somehow less surprised than she could have been to find Sam ensconced in a carol right by the restricted section, eyes tight and brows wrinkled, notes in his messy handwriting scattered like crazy.

"Sam," she says, and when he looks up his eyes are red rimmed and shadowed. She drops the packet in front of him. "Sam, I think something's wrong."

He shivers, full bodied and hard, and flinches back when she tries to touch him. "Why are you asking me about it? Do I look like I know about this- this kind of thing, or something?" Jess winces and almost denies that he does, just to ease the hurt in his face.

"You're my boyfriend," she says, and it's the first time she's said the word out loud like that. Her boyfriend. Her man. "And I trust you. And I think that something's wrong." And she knows, she incontrovertibly knows that he has a reason to not trust her. She wonders, for the first time, if he knows too. If he knows that there is magic in the way they met.

Sam bites his lower lip, worrying at it. His chin points down and his eyes are fixed to the desk. "I think something is after Zach," he murmurs, as if ignoring her almost confession. "He's been having weird dreams. Acting weird."

Jess wraps her arms around her chest and stares at the same scratch mark Sam is fixated on. "I think something is after me," Jess admits. She takes another breath, ready to admit more. "I dreamt it. And I cast in flour and tea-"

She doesn't feel him move, just a shifting in the air, and suddenly his arms are around her, one palm covering her mouth, gentle, but stilling the words to keep them inside her. Hard and hot and just plain big. His hair is soft on her cheek, growing out of the buzz cut he came to school with so fast. He smells of salt.

"Don't worry," he whispers, and rocks her, like a child rocking a favorite doll. "It's okay, Jess. I know what to do."

"But, Sam." She leans against him, her head shaking, hands clenched up in the worn fabric of his shirt. 

"Shhh..." he murmurs, like a breeze against her ear, silencing her again. "It's okay." And this is Sam, who lets her climb on top, who laughs and agrees pretty much no matter what she crazy stunt she wants to pull.

This is Sam, who will not let her talk, will not let her get a sentence out. Jess wants to scream, but it won't come out past the lump in her throat. Her eyes prickle and she feels the hot, angry tears on her cheeks, but Sam won't let her pull away and he's too strong for her to force it.

\

Sam reads from Koshchei, out loud but in an undertone, his voice a murmur, like someone on the wrong side of a straightjacket and some psychoactive drugs might. He doesn't look at Jess, because he's scared he'll say the wrong thing. Or she'll say- something.

"_Hail, Prince!' says she, whither does God send you? And is it of your free will or against your will?'_" Sam reads, and the words sting when he remembers the dream that wasn't.

And Sam reads, and he can sort of hear his dad, loading a gun with silver shot and talking about witches. Serious and deadly.

_"They're people, boys. The things they do, that's not human. But you need to remember that they're people, they're smart, and they don't need to stick to some routine or ritual or anything predictable at all."_

And Dean had given an eye rolling kind of laugh. "People. That's fucked up, man. They sound like monsters to me."

"Some people are monsters," Dad said, and gave Dean an atta-boy pat on the back, like he was getting it. Sam was the only one who didn't get it. 

"Sam," Jess says. "You've done this before." And he sort of can't believe she wants to talk now. Dean wouldn't talk now. Unless it was about the case.

"No," Sam says. "I mean. Yes, I've read folklore. I took a folklore class. In like, this high school I was in Massachusetts. Really upscale. College credit. I-"

"That's not what I mean." Her voice is sharp, and Sam wants to cover her mouth before she says something he can't unhear. It's one thing for him to know, and another to hear it from her mouth. But he doesn't, and she doesn't stop. "Jesus, Sam, you have to cut me a little slack. I knew things... but I didn't know. I was never sure before."

"Sure about what? Folklore? Come on, it's not multivariable equations, I know, but-" Sam says, words coming hot and fast, like he might use his fists instead if she were Dean. Then she cuts him off, makes him wince at the crack of her bag against the desk. Hard and sharp enough to scar.

"Sam Winchester. You-"

"Please." The word comes out in a gulp, hushed and young sounding. So much less forceful than Sam wanted it to be. "Please. Don't. Just, go back to your room, Jess. Get some real sleep. I promise. I swear. It'll be okay. Just please don't talk about this now." He forces himself to look at her and almost loses it when she looks back.

No one has ever looked at him quite that way, except maybe Dean right before Sam pulled away and hopped on a Greyhound to here.

"You ate from my hand," she whispers, like that means something. "I didn't know what it would mean when I did it, not really. I'm so sorry, Sam."

She gets up and goes, walking right out the door before Sam has a chance to ask what she's sorry for. Sam is glad, because he has this terrifying sense of foreknowing. Like he knows that maybe if he did try to ask her, he wouldn't be able to force the words out. No more than he can ever quite manage to dial Dean.


	5. Not Against Their Will 4 of 4

Jess doesn't go back to her room, she's shaking too hard for sleep. She gets a cab instead, trying not to worry about where money for the fare is going to be coming from. A cab downtown, because she can't wait for the bus, not now.

The shop she's looking for is incense tacky and makes her eyes burn with childhood memories. "You're here," she whispers to the woman behind the counter. "I thought you and dad were still back east."

The woman smiles and shakes her head. "My only daughter goes away so far, I need to check to make sure it is okay."

Jess nods, though if it were any other way, any other place she had to go but here, she'd have been angry. Not relieved. Not warmed soul deep. "I've done something terrible. I need help."

The woman, her mama, gets up and folds her arms around Jess, so much like Sam did and so very different. Smaller than Jess, tiny and dark eyed. "Oh, daughter. If I can."

Jess takes hiccuping, sobbing breaths and tucks her head in close. "Mama. I didn't believe. Not really. I didn't believe it would work, so I did it."

"Did what?" Warm hands pet her hair and draw her into the back room. Sit her down on a squishy soft couch, surrounded by dust and incense.

"I cast a love spell. Like you taught me. I wished into the flour and fed it to the boy I wanted and now- I don't know." She closes her eyes, remembering the jerky motions of the greyhound bus and how lost Sam's eyes had been. How lost and alone and still strong and beautiful and perfect. How hungry she'd been.

"It happens," her mama said briskly. "I wouldn't have taught you a spell that wasn't to be used. I'll put on some tea and we'll talk of the ritual you used and its consequences."

Jess nods, uncurling a little and surprised that she'd curled up to begin with. "I brought a strand of his hair for you to look at."

"Good, good," her mama said and took the wadded up tissue with Sam's hair from Jess' outstretched hand. Jess just watched while her mama made tea and set up the herbs and mirrors, whispering under her breath the whole time. It was comforting. Familiar.

Finally, Jess had a steaming mug pressed into her hand and her mama sat down next to her, hugging her close. And her mother's face is so set, looks so old in just that moment, like she's been carved from river rock. It's utterly terrifying and it's all Jess can do to keep still.

"Little idiot," her mother whispered. "Of all the boys in the world. You claimed him. And this boy- you think no one will challenge you for what you've claimed? You have no idea."

"Mama?" Jess whispered in a tiny girl voice, eyes too wide open.

"I don't know for certain. There's too much power there, Jessica." Her mother covers her face with her hands and Jess just watches, waits, until she uncovers them again. When she does she looks like herself again, like she's playing the inscrutable gypsy matron for a bunch of marks. A month ago that would have pissed Jess off, that retreat. Made her yell, challenge. Now all she feels is afraid.

"Never mind. It's done. Now let's talk about the other problem."

"Other problem?" Jess asks, even though she knows damned well what that means. Whatever has happened, whatever this thing with Sam is, she's on her own. No one's going to jump from the sidelines and save her.

"Baba Yaga. I do watch the news, girl, I've heard about the deaths. Now, you listen to me, and I'll tell you what you need to do." 

And Jess nodded and listened, like this was class and she was taking notes. At least this was doing something.

\

So, even though he actually knows better by now, Sam tries to call Dean. It's just sheer stubbornness by now. Every five minutes. Then every ten and twenty. Keeps trying, but it's hard to even turn his cell on, never mind dial. He can't force it, like there's some stiff, thick barrier in his head, between nerves and fingers. Still, Sam thinks that maybe if he wishes hard enough Dean will hear him and come. Just come, because Sam needs him. Because Sam is dying for need of him.

But that won't happen. Sam knows that Dean won't even know that Sam thought of him at all. 

Eventually Sam just drops the cell on his desk and leaves it there. Heads back for the library, but it isn't any more help than before. He tries anyway, spends hours trying before he finally paces outside, trying to clear his head instead. That's when he finds the eleventh body. A girl, blonde and tan like Jess.

Sam almost chokes before he realizes it's not her, not Jess. Just a girl, curled up to tightly, face clenched like she died having nightmares. He kneels by the body, and he can smell grain.

_When Sam looks up, he sees it, passing on his left, hooves pounding the pavement loud enough to wake the quad if anyone else could hear it. The black rider, black as night, on a black horse._

Sam has a silver knife, salt, and holy water. He knows his enemy now. He knows that looking for it pretty much guarantees he's going to find. Sam gets up and gives chase, running hard and fast enough that he should be out of breath but isn't.

Running until it's sunrise and he's somewhere that should be Stanford campus, but isn't anymore.

At the end of the path there is a house on crooked legs. And around it are twelve poles, and eleven of the poles have a desiccated head that might have been human once, stuck on like some sick fairytale. Eleven poles with human heads and one without. Eleven people dead on campus so far.

If he dies here, he'll die like they did. Sam doesn't blink.

He doesn't jump, isn't surprised when he meets the woman at a gate made of bone. She is still old and bent and yellow eyed, but her gaze is cunning, like she knows something he doesn't.

"Hail, Samuel," she says, and salutes him like a soldier. And he's not that, he's fucking well not. He's a freshman at Stanford and nothing else. "Why have you come? Is it of your own accord or against your will?"

"I don't know," he says. "I'm not sure. Isn't that strange?"

And the woman laughs, like something out of a cartoon or a mystery, ridiculous, but terrifying. "Against your will, of course. Poor, poor little Samuel, you fought so hard to be free and now you're just her slave."

And Sam opens his mouth to profess ignorance, to yell, to challenge. To hurt her. All he wants is to see blood on his hands.

_"Please, grandmother," comes out of his mouth instead. Soft, respectful, the way he learned to be for everyone except the people who matter. "I need to know the truth."_

"Truth? If you know too much, you age too soon. But ask questions, if you must." 

And Sam swallows hard, and doesn't flinch away from the woman's yellow fingernails on his skin. "My mother died," he says.

The woman jerked back hissing and nodding. "Yes. She died and she blessed you as she died, with her last blood. It's a strong blessing, your mother's, it burns my bones. For that alone I will answer when you ask. Now ask me your question."

Sam's hands fall to his sides and he lets out a low tearing breath. She died and she blessed you. If Dean or dad were here, with the chance to know this, their insane quest to know this. If he asked, and then he finds out and tells them, he can just imagine the look on their faces.

It could be over now, everything Dean and Dad had been looking for. Sam can do that, and if he does, he gets them back, doesn't he?

Even Dad would take him back. And Dean...

Sam stares and the woman's yellow eyes stare back, daring him to ask. The heads on their poles turn too, eye sockets wide and full of fire.

"How do I stop the deaths on campus?" he asks softly because he needs to know that. He owes it to Zach.

For a moment the woman looks like she'd like to shriek, and her hands reach out, curled into fists, ready to grab him. Sam has the knife out before he even flinches, silver and blessing, but she jerks back. "Your damned mother's blessing," she hisses. "If you didn't have it you would be the last head on my pole. And how the demons of hell would howl!"

"Answer the question," Sam says, voice cracking and unsteady, but his knife hand solid. His mother. Mom. He can see an image on a yellowing photograph and a word picture in Dean's voice.

"There is a red doll in a glass case in a white hall. That doll is from the Russian Steppes. Inside the doll is an egg and in that egg is a needle. Break the needle and I will seek elsewhere for my heads," she spits, like she's fighting for every word. She speaks anyway.

"White hall?" Sam presses.

"It is a white hall, in the place where you come from." The woman speaks as if every word is ground out from her teeth, like it's wearing them to blood and gums. "You are clever and will find it. Now ask your next question."

"Is Jess a witch?"

The woman's teeth seem to grind even harder and she shouts when she speaks. "Your little gypsy mistress? I think you know that truth already." She smiles and shows rows of yellow teeth. Too many rows like a shark's. "She was afraid to be alone and ignorant, so she cast a spell to bewitch and enslave. She will pay for it. Ask your next question! Ask!"

"Ignorant?" Sam whispers. He can see Jess when he closes his eyes, her pale hair and the way she smiles and it feels so real. She didn't know. Of course. It hurts, the sudden possibility, the hope.

"Only the ignorant would bewitch such as you." The woman gives a wild, sharp gesture of the hand, as if urging Sam forward. "Ask! Ask!"

Sam can see Jess. And he can see Dean, his face pale and set, freckles like blotches in sour milk when Sam walked away. His mother, fading edges of a yellowing photograph and his father, telling him to get the fuck out and never, never, never come back. He's shaking. He's shaking and he can't stop.

He's alone. No Dean, no Jess, just Sam, with a knife in his hands.

"Why did my mother die?" Sam blurts out, heart pressed to close to his chest, and it hurts.

"Boys who ask too many questions don't live out the end of the tale, even blessed ones," the old woman hisses and reaches for him again. Her eyes are even yellower, slit like a goat's, and Sam screams, raises his knife and throws the holy water.

The tattoo on the small of his back burns like it might explode and the woman does not come closer.

She hisses, clutching her burning, acid washed face. "You have more blessings than you know," she whines. "Now get out! Go! Remember the white hall."

\

It's still night when Sam wakes up, huddled up against a bench near the body of the girl who looks like Jess but isn't. He jumps up, gagging, and wonders how long it's been. Not too long, no one found this yet.

In the end it's stupidly easy, because Sam stumbles to his feet and right there on the library door there's a poster plastered in bright colors and black and white. The Cantor Arts Center is having an exhibit of Russian cultural artifacts. And on the poster is a red doll, a _matryoshka_ in layers, in a glass case. 

He breaks in without too much trouble, the lock popping easily, and the alarm system not much to disable. The collection isn't exactly valuable. Somehow, he's not surprised to find Jess already there, by the display case.

She's dressed in black, and staring at it, and Sam doesn't ask how she got in without tripping anything.

"So," he says softly, mostly just to see her flinch. To know she didn't know he was coming, that he surprised her.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"Why me? I'm not- I'm not a good person."

Jess laughs at that, harsh and hysteria tinged. "I wanted you. And good… I am good?"

Sam shrugs and raises the case, pulls out the doll. It opens easily and inside is an egg, thin and fragile. He cracks it and the silvery needle settles into his palm.

"I have a brother. Dean. His name is Dean," Sam whispers. "He gets a real kick out of burning things. Total pyro freak."

He breaks the needle in half with his hands and then gets the accelerant out of his backpack.

"That'll trip the fire alarm," Jess says softly. "If we're going to stay here and go to school, let's not get caught today, okay?" Sam nods, and lets her guide him outside, somewhere isolated. Somewhere it's safe to burn things.

He douses the doll, the needle, and the eggshell, all of it. Jess takes the lighter and he can see the flame in her eyes. Bright and endless.

Sam hasn't seen someone burn to death since he was six months old, but he has nightmares about it often, and all of them come out and choke him at the reflection of fire in Jess' eyes.

He thinks about sitting down at her feet and hugging her knees. Telling her everything, about himself, mom and his dad and the hunt and the bone deep, grinding terror that never, ever went away. About the morning he woke up and actually understood that it was not going to get better. Sam wants to tell her he maybe loves her.

And Sam thinks about telling her about Dean. And that- he wants to shake. Wants to smash her face in with his fist, the way you do when it's a guy and you can't love them for hating them but never, never can with a girl you cradle in your bed. Wants to scream, to demand, 'You let me go! You let me go to him! I'll fucking kill you if you don't let me go!' Scream and scream and see her face dissolve into a pulp of fire and flesh.

Sam can almost taste it.

"I was fucking him. My brother," he says instead of anything else, as Jessica palms fire against the wood and the doll lights up. To make her flinch.

She flinches. Eyes wide, hand pressed to her mouth. "I- I don't know what you want me to do with that," she says and her voice cracks around the edges.

"Nothing. What can you do?" he says, because he can't hit her.

"Nothing," she repeats. Still flinching and shaking and staring at him, like it's all his fault.

Sam isn't satisfied with that, so he keeps talking. "I was all alone and there was no one else. So I fucked him. I loved him. There is no one else. And now I tried to call him and I couldn't. I can't. Did you-"

"Not on purpose," she whispers. She looks very young, younger than eighteen, and her eyes are wide and white and full of strain. It makes Sam's stomach ache. He still wants to kill her and he knows he can't.

"Okay," he says and somehow the outrage fades and he's just tired. Just drained.

"That's it? Okay and that's it?" Jess mumbles, shaking her head. She's close enough that he can smell the warmth of her skin.

"Maybe it is okay. I mean, all this-" Sam make a wide expansive gesture, as if to bring everything, Stanford, Jess, all of it, into one circle. "This is what I wanted," Sam mutters. "To come here. This is it." He stares at the fire, watches it brighten and then sputter. Jess lets the lighter drop to the ground while the doll keeps burning. She reaches out to take his hand in hers.

"I wanted to come here too," Jess says, and clutches at his hand, hard enough to bruise. "All I wanted was to be happy. I thought you could make me happy. That I could make you- I don't know."

Sam starts to nod, but he can't, so he just stands there and tries to think, to breathe. He breathes with his mouth open, huge gasping breaths. He's not looking at Jess now, not really, just the embers of the little doll. The air stinks of charcoal and ash and so do both of them. Sam doesn't push her away when she reaches for him, but he doesn't touch her back either, doesn't move any closer.

"Happy. This... I wanted to come here," he whispers. "But this isn't. I can't. I can't. I can't do this any more." Three times is for magic. Repeating anything three times- Sam's voice breaks like a boy's when he speaks, breaks like the needle in the egg. 

"No," she agrees, eyes down, forehead pressed to his chest. He stays perfectly still against her, like he's afraid of what will happen if he moves.

"Is that okay with you too?" he sounds like he's asking permission and he doesn't know why. "That I can't? Do you- do you mind?" Like he's begging for something, and all he can do is hope that Jess understands what he's asking and doesn't make him say it out loud, because he honestly can't. Jess' hands clench around the soft, worn fabric of his shirt.

"Okay," she says, not quiet, but not loud either. Her voice is shockingly steady, but she sways against him and his hands are suddenly there, braced against her back and holding on, pressing her close. "All this- this shit. It's just superstition. Not real, right? Not like..." Not like school and sun, and the apartment they already talked about for next year, even though it honestly hasn't been that long they've been together. Even though- all that other stuff they've just sort of agreed to never mention again.

"Yeah," Sam says hoarsely and he doesn't look down to meet her eyes, but kisses her forehead, gasping, breathing her in. "Yes."

Later, much later, he kisses her mouth and her neck, traces her nipples with his tongue, slow and ardent. He says, "Thank you. Oh thank you, thank you."

Jess nods and clings to his shoulders, leaving nails marks indented into Sam's skin that will disappear even before she does.

End

Author's notes: Strangely, in its original conception, this story was going to be a romantic comedy all about how Sam and Jess fall for each other. Erm. That worked out well. It was stuck in the fragment stage of writing because Sam kept being really angry and angsty and Jess was just off somehow. And then I got hit with the idea for Whoever Eats of It and I realized why. Between that and a creepy dream involving one of my personal favorite fairy tale characters, Baba Yaga, I knew what this story was going to be about. 

Obviously, I made completely free with the Baba Yaga stories for my own nefarious purposes. If you're interested, two of the originals are, Koshchei the Deathless and Vasilisa. You can find them online with a quick google search.

If you didn't catch it but still care, my Baba Yaga speaks in nursery rhyme fragments quite a bit. It's tough to come up with that level of creepy on your own.

The rhymes in question?

There was a crooked man  
Who walked a crooked mile.  
He found a crooked sixpence  
Against a crooked stile.  
He bought a crooked cat  
Which caught a crooked mouse,  
And they all lived together  
In a crooked little house.

A man of words and not of deeds   
Is like a garden full of weeds  
And when the weeds begin to grow  
It's like a garden full of snow  
And when the snow begins to fall  
It's like a bird upon the wall  
And when the bird away does fly  
It's like an eagle in the sky  
And when the sky begins to roar  
It's like a lion at the door  
And when the door begins to crack  
It's like a stick across your back  
And when your back begins to smart  
It's like a penknife in your heart  
And when your heart begins to bleed  
You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed.

I would, if I could,  
If I couldn't how could I?  
I couldn't, without I could, could I?  
Could you, without you could, could ye?  
Could ye? Could ye?  
Could you, without you could, could ye?

The next story in this series is pretty well underway, but probably going to hit a snag since I have never managed to write Dean before. We will see how that goes.


End file.
